Tuesday, July 19, 2011

OK, perhaps it's a cheap shot, but I sort of have to write this one. Yesterday, I ranted:

Ryan is apparently still upset, or still pretending to be upset, that the president attacked his budget a few months ago with Ryan present, which is apparently some sort of new ultimate sin against the politeness gods. Whatever; I'm sure that had Ryan not been present, then that would have been the new ultimate sin.

You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up.

That would be my emphasis added.

(TPM has the original floor statement by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her response).

"Do you really expect Paul Ryan and Allen West to have an identical sense of etiquette?"

Wouldn't have necessarily expected it, considering their different backgrounds - unless I had been watching closely enough to notice that they are both supremely self-regarding petulant hard-blowing demagogues.

I might also have noted that both receive embarrassingly erotic responses from the hard right base. Go visit some rightroots blogs reacting to West or Ryan, on either or for that matter virtually any incident.

So, on further consideration, yes, not only do I expect them to have very similar senses of etiquette, I think they observably do: Each seems to believe that he excretes rainbows complete with pots of gold, and nothing else, and that anyone who doubts it and says so is deserving of suspicion. The very definition of bad manners would therefore be to express such doubts publicly, whether to his face or behind his back. For some people, there's apparently no difference.